Ending earmarks: It's not complicated

The voters sent a clear message to stop reckless spending. Yet the earmarking system that perpetuates the power of incumbency, fosters a culture of dependency on the government, and produced the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” and influence-peddling scandals that sent many to prison, still exists. Washington keeps borrowing and spending money we don’t have on things we don’t need.

But there is now a unique opportunity to make changes: Our Democratic president and soon-to-be Republican-led House agree that it is time to end the corrupting and wasteful practice of earmarks.

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President Barack Obama, in his post-election “mea culpa,” affirmed that he is “a strong believer that the earmarking process in Congress isn’t what the American people want to see when it comes to making tough decisions about how taxpayer dollars are spent.”

He pledged to work with the new House leaders — including the presumptive Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who has never taken an earmark and says that those who request them “rob the public treasury;” and presumptive Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who said that earmarks “serve as a fuel line for the culture of spending that has dominated Washington far too long.”

Others have pledged to end earmarks and are supporting Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), a leading earmark foe, for a position on the House Appropriations Committee.

This is a big step in the right direction. But more needs to be done to stop earmarks for good — especially in a time of trillion-dollar deficits.

First, the president, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) – who pledged yesterday to support the earmark moratorium in the Senate – and the future speaker should urge Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to pass the same earmark moratorium that GOP members have already enacted in the House.

Senators are due to consider this moratorium later this week in a resolution offered by Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.). While one would think the resolution should pass easily, some senators continue defending this bad practice. They argue that earmarking is a fight between co-equal branches over discretionary spending authority.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) calls this fight against earmarks “phony” — saying the ban is meaningless because “if you kill an earmark . . . it doesn’t save one cent.” But, as Coburn noted, “stopping an activity that spends money does result in less spending.”

For starters, an earmark ban may have prevented extraneous projects — like Inhofe’s $1.7 million Oklahoma City river ferry boat program. In any event, while Inhofe now opposes the moratorium, he voted for a similar ban in 2008, when last up for re-election.

Those members of Congress who defend earmarks are wrong: Banning earmarks saves money.